1943, and that innovating and the dodgers. probably first but other questions? >> all right will hey you guys did greatly appreciated thank you for coming today and i hope you have fun and we will see you next class.. my name is gavin kleespies and i

am the director of programs exhibitions and community partnerships for the massachusetts historical society, and i'm happy to welcome you to this evening's program. this is our second in-person program since march of 2020. tonight we'll hear about one of the most consequential battles in american diplomatic history the struggle between president woodrow wilson and senate majority leader henry cabot lodge over the league of nations our speaker this evening is patricia o'toole. i'm inso tool is a former professor in the school of arts at columbia university. she is a fellow of the society of american historians and a member of the presidential historial historical commission at the new york historical society. she has published five books including biographies of theodore roosevelt and henry adams the second of which was a final for the pulitzer prize the national book critic circle award in the los angeles times book tonight. she'll be speaking on her most recent book, which is the moralist woodrow wilson in the

world. he made this book will also be for sale following the program people are interested. before we get started. i just like to mention that the mass historical society hosts 60 original programs during the course of a year this these explorer all aspects of american history. we also host 35 seminars and teacher workshops and most if not all these are either free or available at a very small cost. we're only able to do this. thanks to the sport of our donors and members. so if you enjoy it tonight's program. i hope you'll consider becoming a supporter of the massachusetts historical society. so without further ado, i'm happy to turn it over to patricia o'toole. people gavin and thank you all for coming whether you're here virtually or actually we go on youtube after this right sometime after this. yeah, so all your friends all the world can see this. i hope i do.

all right for you. and i'm especially grateful for all the imagination and precautions that nasa store cause taken so that we could do this with a live audience. it's my first since the pandemic began actually and it's the first time i felt safe enough to do one. and a one last. thank you heartfelt to peter drummy who is somewhere around i think ah, there you are. he's the as probably most of you know, he's the chief historian and a long time librarian here at mass historical. it's been a major help to my biographical research for more than 30 years since 1987 if i remember right and major help under states the case indispensable is more like it. so, thank you peter. so tomorrow is the centennial of the federal government's first major public commemoration of armistice day. so i thought it would be a good

moment to revisit the original armistice day in 1918 and the ceremonies of november 11th 1921. um, it's a moment to recall the context of these events and also to look at how they've shaped american foreign policy. and then i'm going to speed walking through the history of armistice day because there's an ambivalence in it that i think reflects our continuing ambivalence to peace. um, we think of the original armistice day as the day that mark the end of the fighting and world war. i that's what we would tell people it was but world war. i was not a term that was in use back then. the british referred to it as either the world war or the great war and that's of course great as in huge not great as in fabulous. and the french called it ladder de dere the last of the last meaning that it was in their

minds history's final war. then maybe borrowing from the english writer hg. wells called it the war to end war which after a while became the phrase we know better the war to end all wars. few survivors of that catastrophe could imagine that humankind would be so dense as to fight a second world war. the military and civilian deaths caused in the world war the great war vladder, whatever you want to call it numbered about 20 million was unprecedented. thousands of square miles of europe had been blasted to smithereens and hundreds of thousands of square miles were without national boundaries and stable governments because for empires fell during the war. but also a good moment, i think to revisit the war of ideas between woodrow wilson and senator henry cabot lodge.

wilson's admirers have cast lodge as the villain in that battle the fight over the league of nations. and in that version of the story lodge is a parochial highly partisan politician who rejects wilson's dream of preserving world. peace through an international association of governments. because heat lodge favored a return to isolationism. i see that as a bum rap. i'm gonna make my case, but first i want to to give you a little backstory. the constitution every time somebody's talking about the 20th century and then they say the constitution i think. oh, no, we have to go back to 1787. we'll never get back to what we're really talking about. but this is quick the constitution puts the president in charge of foreign relations and when wilson became president in 1913 lodge with respectful even bucked his party on a couple of issues to back wilson. but wilson seemed to feel a rivalry with lodge from the very beginning.

wilson was used to being the smartest guy in the room and he liked it. i mean he really liked it. we also have had a phd is the first president with the phd but so did lodge. wilson had a law degree. so did lodge. wilson had written histories so had lodge. someone more extroverted than wilson would have tried to build on the common ground i think but not wilson. and he might have shied away because lodge had one edge over him that there was no way he could like get a leg up on him. wilson had taught government at princeton and elsewhere and he'd written about it but before his election as president he'd served in elective office for only two years as governor of new jersey. lodge had been in the senate for 20 years when wilson turned up in washington. so wilson did nothing to cultivate lodge.

wilson in that regard was the polar opposite of lbj and bill clinton who were famous for walking into georgetown parties and going straight for somebody sometimes a politicians sometimes of journalists. who disagreed with them? both lbj and clinton wanted to win that person over. wilson was not that sort of fellow. he was guarded. had no idea how to schmooze. his first biographer who knew him well notice that he never took the initiative in making friends. and as a decision maker wilson preferred thinking things through on his own when there was a big issue. he got advice, but once he got it he liked to go off by himself and come up with a solution. and once he did that he often gave a speech that was intended to persuade the country that his way was the best approach to whatever the issue was.

when there was congressional blowback to his idea, he sometimes pulled rank reminding the country that he was the president and that the president was the only federal official elected by all the people i don't think large envy wilson except maybe in one regard by all accounts. wilson was the greatest orator of his age. and lodge was one of the poorest the joke in massachusetts was that if you were going to a large speech he went really early so you could get a seat in the back row. but i the reason i think that lodge envy wilson's oratorical brilliance is simply based on something i noticed which is that lodge spent an awful lot of time and energy tearing rules of speeches apart privately and publicly. aside from that though large

generally focused his public disagreements with the president president on substance. not on the president's style or his personality. your first big exchange of gunfire over foreign policy came in january 1917. the world war had been going on for two and a half years and wilson had made a few attempts to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table. neither side was interested. you might think with all the killing that was going on. they would be interested, but they were both convinced that after so much sacrifice. they were going to win. so they just didn't want to negotiate anything. so as 1917 begins wilson is trying desperately to maintain the neutrality that the united states had had since the beginning of the war. and he was also looking ahead to the eventual peacemaking. you wanted all nations to focus on what was best for the world not what was best for their side

because he firmly believed that what was best for the world would benefit all nations. so he went to the senate and gave one of the most important addresses of his presidency. he said that when the fighting stopped the american people through their government would have to play a role in crafting the peace treaty in order to guarantee. peace and justice throughout the world. ability of the peace would depend on how the combatants saw the war wilson said was it a struggle for a just secure peace, or was it the same old same old with the victor's dividing the spoils and forging another set of military alliances that attempted to balance the power of one block of countries against the power of another block. for wilson, the war had exposed the fatal flaw of the balance of power model. so supposed advantage of that model was that if one member of an alliance was attacked the

others were obligated come to its defense. and that's precisely what happened in 1914 austria felt attacked when it's heir to the throne was assassinated and out of the way corner of the austro-hungarian empire. germany per the terms of the alliance came to the defense of austria. then russia came to the defense of the slavs who wanted independence from the austrians. then germany attacked belgium then britain and france rallied to the defensive belgium. and britain sent the royal navy to guard its oil fields in mesopotamia. so in the blink of an eye, the world is inflamed. that was august 1914 that all of that stuff happened. by 1917 wilson saw only one sane path forward. there must be not a balance of power but a community of power. he said not organized rivalries, but an organized common piece.

he explained how this new world order could be brought about. there must first be a peace without victory. he said he believed that peace made by the victors and imposed on the vanquish would not work because the losers resentments were bound to fester and that would poison the peace. wilson also argued that a lasting peace would require every nation regardless of its military and economic strength. to be a court of the same rights as every other nation. and every nation would have to accept the fundamental principle of democracy namely government with the consent of the government. in this worldwide community of self-governing equals wilson said there would be no competing alliances there would be just one alliance of all nations and they would be bound together by their commitment to keep the peace. then and only then could every nation live without fear of invasion and without the need to maintain large expensive armies

and navies. wilson had been advised to by several people to delete the peace without victory phrase for a very good reason. it made no distinction between the war's perpetrators and its victims. he left it in and was roundly criticized. but his idea of replacing the balance of power with a worldwide community of power a league of nations was widely praised. not by large though. large objected to just about everything wilson had said recited his objections also in a speech to the senate. what's the world ought to believe in the superiority of peace without victory? he said but that was not the case and we must deal with things as they are. lodge said he sympathized with wilson's ideal world a world in which every government ruled with the consent of the governed, but he wondered just how the theory could be put into practice who would force the

non-democratic governments to change their ways and how in light of its own history. could the united states insist. he asked the united states had not expanded westward to the pacific by a vote of the people that had happened through military force with us army sweeping indigenous peoples out of the way. lodge also anticipated that all would go well in this new international community as long as quarreling nations agreed to abide by the league's rulings on their disputes, but what if one of them refused and declared war the league would have to call on its members to send troops to enforce its ruling which might well widen the war. lodge wanted to be constructive in this moment and in place of wilson's grand vision for the world. he offered a modest to-do list for the united states. build up national defenses work for arms limitation and assist with the restoration of the rule

of international law which had been grossly violated by the perpetrators of the war. lodge admitted that these were small ideas compared to wilson's but he thought that all three were reasonable and sure to do substantial good. and then as a wc fields character in a movie said to his movie wife. when he came home late one night from a bender. things happened united states severed diplomatic relations with germany congress declared war on germany and two million american soldiers sailors marines and airmen went into battle on the side of the allies. as we know the fighting ended with an armistice that took effect on november 11th 1918 at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. a few later wilson went off to the paris peace conference without consulting the senate

committee on foreign relations, which happened to be chaired by lodge and is gavin mentioned lodge is also senate majority leader at this point. given the magnitude of the task in paris fashioning lasting peace for an entire world that have been turned entirely upside down. i think most presidents would have met with the house and senate foreign relations committees to lay out the plan solicit suggestions and seek support. a candy president also would have asked a prominent republican to join his peace delegation. but republicans had just won the midterm elections of 1918. and for the first time in his presidency, he's six years in at this point. wilson doesn't have democratic majorities in congress. is antipathy to lodge and to our republicans at this point. let them to just skip the groundwork. large in particular at irritated

him by continuing to state his objections to the league of nations as wilson conceived of it large thought that the plan was too vague that the league could never live up to its promises and that it would commit the united states to send troops to any war anywhere in the world that ever popped up. wilson assumed that he could ignore all this why. because the senate had never failed to ratify a peace treaty. so it was offer writing high to steal a line from mark twain. he had the calm confidence of a christian with four aces. two million us troops who fought in europe had swiftly transformed of four years stalemate into a decisive military victory for the allies. also, the united states had made huge war loans to the allies and they needed more money to recover united states is one of the few countries in the world

with any money left at the end of this war. so wilson, like most americans actually assumed that the allies would bow to uncle sam's wishes in order to get uncle sam's dollars. finally ordinary people around the world were thrilled by wilson's vision for a lasting peace and by his idea that global problems required a global league. the the photographs of people greeting wilson, he made a kind of tour of europe and there are millions of people who come out to see him and in italy there were very kind of operatic about it. you know, there were people wounded soldiers crawling up to him this way to kiss the hem of his trousers and streets were in in italy were for him and i was skeptical when i first read this that that you know, the whole world loved something. it's like when does that happen?

but it really was true at least in europe. it's peace conference lasted for six months, and i'm going to sum it up in less than a minute. excuse me, if i skip your favorite part wilson got his league of nations. any convinced the victors to scale back or give up their most egregious demands, but he had not secured secured a piece. that was generous. he had only one vote in the council of four sometimes five. who made the decisions about what was going to be in the treaty? and what was not going to be in the treaty and the others insisted on peace terms designed to make it impossible. for germany ever to rise again and start another war. back to washington in the middle of the conference and while he was there. he did meet with the senate committee on foreign relations logists several questions about article 10 of the treaty, which committedly members to send

troops if war broke out between two members. large pointed out that if the us signed the treaty the power to declare war would shift from congress. to the league and that would violate the us constitution. as wilson was sailing back to france lodge gave a speech in which he said that he wanted to keep america as it had been not isolated not prevent her from joining other nations for the other great purposes of the league, but i wish her to be the master of her fate. when wilson came home for good in july 1919. he went up to the senate in person to submit the treaty. something no previous president had done. he did it because you guessed it. he wanted to make a speech. it's most memorable line was a question. dare, we reject it and break the heart of the world. senate fight over the treaty

lasted for eight months and in the middle of it wilson had a major stroke that permanently paralyzed his left side. he was out of the fight his we're gonna him not that one. there's another one of wilson and mrs. wilson at a desk. do you have that one? okay, well, we'll forget it. but so wilson's you know, he suffers a stroke on october 2nd 1919 and he's permanently out of the fight his supporters in the senate carried on the fight and tried to get him to agree to some compromises in order to win ratification, but he refused. and behind the scenes in white house another dramas playing out his wife his doctor and his chief aide orchestrate a cover-up of the true state of his health and for 17 months until the end of his term the united states had a president

who president who was too ill to serve. 1920 part of the cover of the photographs that i wanted to show you is you can find it if you go to google images and look for wilson command photograph and you see it's a beautiful photograph wilson at the his desk with a pen in his hand and mrs. wilson standing there looking like she's going to help turn the page of whatever it is. he's writing and that was put out to newspapers across the country to show this is the president at work. and it just wasn't like that at all. so we have this disabled president who can't. right for the league. he's not thinking straight. which i mean it wasn't out of his mind, but they're just certain things you.

oh there they are. thank you. yeah, thank you. so you see, you know, here's i mean it was a did the trick everybody thought oh good the president's well and he went out for rides in his car all the time. just so he could be seen but it took two secret servicemen big burly guys to get him into the back seat of his open car and then he had to be propped up with pillows so that he didn't tip over because of his you know, he just totally numb on one side and you know, that was part of the skies too and his doctor i really feel sorry for his doctor. actually. he's a navy admiral. he's also the president's physician. so as a navy officer, he's taken an oath to protect and defend the constitution but as wilson's doctor his loyalty is to his patient and he loved wilson. so and he is the same as dr.

grayson dr. grayson would put out these chipper bulletins just like tweets, basically every few days saying today the president managed to blah blah take a walk or something and most of these were like such wilson might have taken a few walks with a few steps in his room with a cane, but he really he really couldn't function at the kind of high order. you have to function in order to he couldn't write anything anymore and he had written very fluidly before. so in march 1920 the senate broke with its history and declined to ratify the treaty. so the united states whose president had done more than any other world leader to create the league of nations? would never be a member.

so the treaties defeat meant that the united states was technically still at war with germany. it felt it felt a wilson successor president harding to submit a separate peace treaty to the senate wilson was still bitter. tried to defeat it with the help of some some of his starches supporters and senate but that failed and it passed by a wide margin shortly before the day that brings us together armistice day 1921. starting it was kind of a hapless president, but he was a nice guy. so he overlooked wilson's plot against the new treaty and invited him to join the armistice day procession from the capital to arlington national cemetery. and on that day the unknown soldier was going to be buried. by 1921 going to the movies was a regular pastime for americans and the show usually began with a newsreel snippets of film from

a handful of events that happened in the previous couple of weeks. didn't take long for politicians and their handlers to understand that the look of an event was often as important as the event itself once millions of people are going to the movies. political event planners had always thought about the look of course, but before newsreels and movie theaters public events were seen only by the people who were actually there or in blurry newspaper photographs and now they're seen by ordinary blokes from coast to coast. so american political stagecraft had come of age during the war. so the white house and the war department event planners had the look of the 1921 armistice day pageantry very much in mind. the script called for an honor guard and four military chaplains to head the march then came the unknown soldier who's on a horse-drawn caisson in a

flag draped casket. and then came harding and the other dignitaries basically officials of his administration. they were to walk from the capital this whole possession walked from the capital to a point just beyond white house where they'd get in automobiles for a ride out to arlington and and wilson who was been sent, you know a copy of these arrangements. he he was gonna be in a carriage for the procession. he wasn't marching with everybody else. so the war department. wanted the wilsons to pass the white house just like everybody else and then get into an automobile like everybody else. and wilson who could walk with a cane by this time not easily, but he could do it, but he'd been to arlington many times as president any new. he wouldn't be able to manage the stairs to the cemeteries amphitheater. so he asked if he could continue

to arlington and his carriage and watched the internment ceremony from there and the war department said no. wilson was furious and he led harding know and harding tried to smooth things over with an explanation, but it was pretty lame. i fear he wrote the wilson that a note of in harmony would be suggested if one formerly in authority. that would be wilson a company the procession to the cemetery when those who constitute the great body of the official division of the procession. that would be harding in his entourage are dropping out. now we know from watching inaugurations and political conventions and campaign events on tv that what we see has been scripted and choreographed to the last detail. so harding's mumbling about his fear of a note of in harmony doesn't ring true more likely the stagecraft team worried about how the scene would play

on the silver screen. public at the movies would see something deeply moving the unknown soldier and his former commander-in-chief ascending the hill together. parting would be upstaged. i don't know if wilson realized that he was literally being cropped out of the picture. but i think we can sympathize with this very he had been commander-in-chief during the war and because the water department would not accommodate his physical handicap he would miss the burial of the unknown soldier. did as they were told driving beyond the white house and then heading for their home on s street, they chose to live in washington after. he left the white house hundreds of people who've been watching the procession followed the wilson's carriage home. when they got to their house, which is a few blocks northwest of dupont circle thousands of

people were in the streets. front and center was an automobile carrying some disabled veterans and wilson limped over on his cane to pay his respects somebody in the crowd made a speech calling wilson a wounded soldier of the war and promising that his dream of a world without war with the von. 1921 commemoration of the armistice did not end on november 11th. on november 12th harding secretary of state opened the world's first arms control conference, which was also the first summit meeting held in the united states as a gathering of nine nations four small ones plus the five great powers of the day the us britain france, japan and italy and this was called the official name was the conference on the limitation of armament was also known as the washington naval conference. wilson was invited but he

declined citing his disability and he picked a good event to miss harding insulted the league of nations by saying that the conference had not been called to remake the entire world. the conference led to several arms control agreements and although they did not last for the ages. they did give the world a 10-year respite from the arms race at sea. and remember the air powers like virtually nothing at this point. see power is the big thing. the republicans held the white house from 1921 till 1933 and throughout these years. they initiated and reached other international agreements aimed at keeping the peace. the united states also sent observers to the league of nations and cooperated with it on several issues. so in light of their record, it's inaccurate to call these republicans lodge and others isolationists. there were isolationists in government, but they were still in a minority.

wilson had felt nothing, but bitterness toward republicans since 1918. so he had nothing good to say about the conference. larger plotted it and in his praise took another swipe at wilson's internationalism. the naval conference had succeeded lodge said precisely because of its limited scope and that he declared was a great lesson for all the nations. scope more than anything else is what separates lodges vision of us foreign policy from wilsons. wilson ford heart and soul into getting the world of militarism imperialism and blind nationalism that tough guy rara the greatest mindset. person's innovation, and it was huge. was to bring the world's government into a world's governments into a permanent association. the league of nations and charge it with the mission of preserving world, peace. thinking big wilson wanted

internationalism to replace nationalism. fudge thinking closer to home was firmly committed to nationalism, but but not the hypernationalism of say imperial, germany. large one of the united states to keep its gays fixed on its own interests while selectively cooperating with other nations on matters of mutual interests. interest global agreements made less us sense to him than agreements or regional packs foreign policy experts call wilson and internationalist. sometimes a liberal internationalist. the 1890s i mean lodge goes as gone down in history as a nationalist or mistakenly as an isolation. and isolationist but actually in the 1890s lodge and his friend theodore roosevelt and a couple of others persuaded president mckinley to shift the country

away from isolationism. they were expansionists not isolationists, but the goal of their expansionism was nothing like wilson's internationalism. there was no brotherhood of man. no kumbaya. the expansionists one of the united states to be recognized as one of the great powers and they succeeded by using the navy to consolidate american control of the caribbean. and to gain a food pacific. they wanted empire light empire without colonies or as one diplomatic historian is called it empire without tears. here on boylston street a hundred years after armistice stay in 1921. it's easy to see the limitations of wilson's embrace of the whole world and of lodges selectivity to if large dropped in on us and he paid many a visit to this building, i think we might be able to persuade him that some

issues climate change. maybe our global issues in need of global solutions. and if wilson came by i think we'd want to fill them in on the challenges of internationalism in our time and maybe talk about mistakes made in some of the military inventions. the united states has made in the name of freedom and democracy. i'm not a foreign policy expert but i don't think there would be much disagreement about the primary cause of our misadventures. too much confidence in the universal appeal of american democracy and too much confidence in our ability to end quarrels that are centuries old. but here's the thing ever since the days of wilson and lodge wilson's internationalism and lodges brand of nationalism have been the touchstones of our serious debates about the role. we want the united states to play in the world. and here's one more thing. franklin roosevelt started his washington career as assistant secretary of the navy in the

wilson administration. he joined it in 1913. just after wilson came to the white house and he stayed the whole eight years and he watched wilson really closely and thought about when when wilson succeeded why he had succeeded and when failed why he had failed. and as president in the 1930s fdr watched the league fall apart. when germany and italy and japan set out to conquer other nations, they simply resigned from the league. fdr watched wilson stock synced to an all-time low. and he watched the surge of american isolationism. but fdr never lost faith in the necessity of internationalism. as soon as the united states entered world war ii he asked a group of advisors to analyze the league's failures and come up with a new design. unlike wilson fdr did not try to work alone and unlike wilson fdr

immediately began building republican support for his idea. so we got the united nations shortly after the end of world war ii it hasn't been perfect. but if you look at what it has accomplished, it seems only fair to say that the world would be worse off without it. somebody some years after the founding of the un internationalism is again out of favor nationalism is enjoying a resurgence and not just in the united states brexit is a nationalistic response to european the eu's multinationalism and for the first time ever in the history of the eu a democracy is just disappeared under president victor orbans autocratic rule of hungary. poland is now pretty far down the same path. we've also seen surges of nationalism and autocracy and recent elections in germany, austria, france turkey and elsewhere. both trends are putting real

strain on democracy and on international cooperation. so wilson was a globalist with a big dream and lodge was a nationalist with more modest ambitions for the united states. for them, it was easier all you were either in. foreign nationalist for us. it doesn't have to be that way. climate change like a world war affects the whole planet as a global problem at sorely needs global remedies. i think it needs local remedies to both local countries and local communities and steve action but the decline of democracy strikes me as an issue that has to be worked through country by country. i don't think the whole world could take that on in any meaningful way. ultimately, i see the historic feud between lodge and wilson over the league of nations. not as a tragedy, which is how it's usually presented but as a gift. they left us with two ways to

think about what we want the united states to be or not to be in the world. and giving us two ways they open up the possibility that there might be even more permutations and combinations. just seeing this is not an ad for my book, but if you can borrow it from the library say the epilogue kind of traces this you know, how how foreign policy has evolved since it's world war ii and they're always coming back to these basic ideas and tweaking in this way and that and learning lessons of what went wrong in the previous administration and thinking well if we we get this way, so these ideas are still alive and important. for armistice day and see era wilson and lodge. it's had a curious history.

from 1919 on many states and cities marked it with parades and memorial services and other events, but it did not become a holiday until 1938. and royal boy was that an excellent moment for americans to stop and remember the 1918 hopes for world peace by 1938. japan was on the rampage in asia hitler had already annexed austria and in september 1938 the allies agreed to let him take parts of czechoslovakia. he had threatened to go to war unless a territory was handed over and he promised peace in exchange for it. so britain, france and italy horrified by the prospect of a second world war. i agreed to the deal and famously britain's prime minister neville chamberlain assured the world that the pact guaranteed peace in our time. so it was under that cloud that americans across the country had

their first federal armistice day holiday. in new york on that day in 1938 mayor. fiorello laguardia and other dignitaries broke ground for a court of peace, which would stand on the grounds of the 1939 world's fair. some cities plan festivities that were more like victory celebrations then commemorations of peace. in baltimore, for example, there was a reenactment of the battle that gave the americans their first big victory in the war. the day's newspapers took note of the disturbances of the peace in europe. the atlantic constitutions headline read germany is winner on armistice day and the story flushes out the thought quote germany risen from defeat appears on the way toward mastery of central and southeastern europe a gigantic world armament races on japan is trying to digest half-conquered china and it goes on the new

york times after giving a detailed account of the last hours of the world war noted that the peace treaty signed it versailles in 1919 was now in shreds. quote a germany humble to the dust has rubbed the dirt out of her eyes and flung it in former enemy faces. today the reich has more german-speaking territory in europe than she had before 1914 a germany disarmed to the stage of military impotence is again the best armed nation in the world. thousands of rifle carrying veterans took to the streets not to commemorate the armistice but to demand that the government of france prepared a defend itself against the german invasion that many frenchmen then saw as inevitable. and they were right us in a year later on september 1 1939 germany invaded poland and world war ii began. were related military and

civilian casualties. exceeded 50 million that's two and a half times the total of world war. i where were two was and remains the deadliest war in history? armistice day became veterans day in 1954 when congress decided that the day should honor all veterans not the moment that ended world war i when i was growing up in a small town in, michigan i marched in many of veterans day parade versus my girl scout troop and then with the high school band. we got into formation near a grade school and paraded behind the veterans of the two world and the korean war. a mile up the street. we stopped at the memorial on the courthouse lawn. it was a simple memorial big boulder with a bronze plaque. listing the names of the dead from our county in all three wars a squad of veterans with

rifles fired and salute and then a man named mr. centella wearing his old navy uniform. played taps and now live in a small town in, maine. we'll turn up for the local holiday parades. this is stuff for me civics was like religion the housework the house where i grew up. in fact, my mother was born on armistice day and died on the 4th of july. so i guess a family we really take this stuff seriously. um, so i'm out there on veterans day and it's called in maine in november. and so the crowds are pretty thin and um, i'm probably the only one there who's i mean, why would anybody else do this? who's thinking about what wilson and were thinking about back in 1921 when the unload soldier was

laid to rest peace and how to keep it. emphasis of the day now is on all who have served in the army air force navy and marines, but especially on those who have died in war and on memorial day, it's much the same we no longer have a national holiday focused on peace and i have to say i find myself wishing that we did. so i'm wondering what you think about that. and what else is on your mind about wilson and lodge and the echoers of armistice day. thank you very much. spiritually why wasn't vice

president thomas? that's a really good question and the there was no there was not at that point. there's nothing in the constitution about, you know, either a president dying or i mean a yeah a president dying in office in that case the vice president just becomes president, but the president is disabled there was nothing in the constitution about what to do. and wilson basically ignored marshall and marshall wilson knew that marshall favored a compromise on the the in the treaty fight in the senate. so wilson was like well no way am i letting him, you know run the show for me because he'll just compromise. so that's the reason. president until after jfk was assassinated.

that lbj thought it's time we have you know. a an amendment about disability and now when the president if the president goes to the hospital for the day for medical tests, the vice president is the president. well, i didn't do it all by myself. a lot of people had come down this path before me the woodrow wilson papers are like 69 published volumes, and there's one that's devoted entirely to wilson's health and then there's a wonderful book by a woman who became a friend of mine phyllis lee levin called edith and woodrow and it's really it's about their relationship, but it's really about this time and she did a beautiful job of going back into all the documents and looking what everyone in

wilson's cabinet was saying asking about this and and wilson. he did allow people to come and see him he allowed. two republican senators to come and see in one afternoon and he could carry on a perfectly intelligent conversation but sustaining his concentration was absolutely impossible. these senators went away thinking yeah, he's in good shape. he can do this. so i went through a little spate. i haven't had a stroke but i went through a i needed a pacemaker it turned out and in the months leading up to that. i knew i was really tired, but i didn't think anything was wrong with my head except. i was having a hard time working and i could carry on. my daily whatever's and you know had no idea that i was sick. so i think stroke victims.

you know, unless they can't speak. and cannot move at all. just think they're fine. i mean we want to think we're fine, right? yes, i've got a question. open and said it. of to ratify a treaty you needed two-thirds majority and the senate actually, i mean lodge is running the the show and to be just sticking a deck against ratification because he thinks it's a bad idea, but he's also determined to you know, if somebody can come up with a slightly different twist on things we can have another vote. so the senate actually voted on it three times and then in the third vote it fell. seven votes short of um, the

two-thirds majority and it was other nurse were by and large against it because the southerners didn't even like federal regulation or expansion of the federal government domestically and they didn't want anything to do really with the rest of the world. the only reason they went along with the war. is that they were promised a lot of military bases in the south. so if you've ever wondered why there are so many military bases in the south. this is the reason um, so i don't mean to suggest that they were all unpatriotic, but they had like one issue which was keeping the federal government from regulating anything more than it was regulating because they saw that as the beginning of the end of segregation yeah. so and then this the support.

yeah, the democrats of that era were. they're not like nancy pelosi joe biden kind of democrats much less you know the squad kind of democrats their they support the president on a lot of things but they also oppose in one of the things for example when about five or six years ago started this big discussion of wilson's racism and and the stories came out about how he allowed the resegregation of the civil service, which had been a place where blacks and whites had worked together quite harmoniously for a long time. and it's true that he did that but the explanation and i don't mean to justify what he did, but he did it for a particular reason. he was not a man who he's a southerner. and so he's you know, definitely believes white people are superior to black people. but he hasn't wake up every

morning wanting to make their lives miserable. he's mostly just not thinking about them and the southerners he wanted to his new freedom. package of economic reforms which was enormous, you know created the federal reserve and the federal trade commission and knew antitrust act and you know in wilson's time we get a modern income tax act so this was like anathema to the southerners and they supported him. mainly because they said we need a sign from you that this is not going to be the beginning of the end of segregation you have to do something in the government that shows the states are still in the saddle. um, and so they came up with this plan of resegregating. the civil service and some people let wilson off the hook because they say oh, well, he was born in 1856 and grew up in the south. what do you expect?

but he i i never was comfortable with that argument because he ran as a as a really forward-thinking progressive in 1912 the people who backed him. work into found the naacp and you know working on racial equality and all kinds of other social reforms having you do. with poverty and he thought of himself as one of those guys so when he realized this bargain he had to make with the south it actually made him physically ill there are a few times where it's discussed in the white house and he just has to go to bed for a few days afterward. um, and he would see for a time. he saw groups of black leaders to discuss this and he he told one of these groups. this is going to change until

blacks are a major political force, you know until they have votes and it really that's what happened. you know, thanks to lbj and the voting rights act and civil rights act. that's when the change comes. so fdr gets off the hook all the time for this when people don't know that he made the same deals with the south and you know, the new deal basically the first time i ever did my own income taxes. and to the last time i ever did them i noticed, you know, i was reading every word. i was just curious about it, and i noticed that domestics and farm workers were in a different category from wage earners and i thought what is that? but oh self-employment. maybe those are the two biggest categories of self-employment. well, they were the two biggest categories of black workers back when the new deal legislation went in and they were excluded

from the new deal. they're excluded from the gi bill all kinds of stuff, but you know wilson he's had a like fuzzy warm guy. so saint fdr goes on, you know being saint fdr and i love fdr. he's my favorite president. but you know fdr was doing the same thing that president's going way back to reconstruction had done. yeah and democrats in that era were not liberal. you for students about the differences between a lot um, well actually i made a i made a list here and i don't know how we can get it to you. but i i there were a lot of

plans being made at the last minute and i have a related reading list and there's a book there's a historian. he's written extensively about wilson at this point. i would call him the dean of wilson scholars and john milton cooper and he wrote a book called breaking the heart of the world in which it's about the league fight and you know wilson's version of internationalism and lodges nationalism are at the heart of that. so all those ideas are in there. um, not you know, it's it's a political history. so there are votes being taken and caucuses being counted and all that stuff. it's not a breezy read, but all all this stuff is in there. and then there's it's it's really time if you're looking for a biography idea. it's really time for another biography of henry cabot lodge, it's been a long time since there was one. your drummy can be indispensable

in research with it the large favors i've used them for three books actually and it's an amazing collection of all kinds of things that you wouldn't expect. so trying to think also there was a there's like i don't know if it's used as a textbook as much as it should be but it's a wonderful book called from colony to superpower by a diplomatic historian named george herring spelled like the fish. and he's a really easy accessible. writer so that would be a place to consult as well.